Hi Friends! I have like 6 minutes of battery life left on my computer so let’s get to this fun craft using leftover book pages from our book safe project. Paper beads, and really, they are not cheap, they are free, woohoo! Use these with regular beads to make one of a kind jewelry!

Hi Friends! I love recycling…or upcycling stuff because it is fun to make something useful out of things you normally throw away. I wanted to make a sturdy pencil pouch to go in my binder and I did so using 4 juice pouches, Duct Tape and a zipper. Watch the video to see how!

I used fun patterned duct tape from Oriental Trading Company in this project. They have Duct brand as well as their own brand of duct tape. Both are very good quality, the only difference I see is that the Oriental Trading Company brand is a tad bit less sticky but it has held up fine in any of my projects. The OTC brand is a bit less expensive and has 20 yards in a roll in most cases where as the duct tape brand is 10-15 yards usually. Since they carry both you get a fantastic selection at $4-$5 a roll and the skinny stuff is even cheaper. All of that info is in the product listing if you are unsure. I hope you try this, or some other recycling craft. I decided to put my pouch in the kids plastic canvas project binder to hold the scissors and yarn needles that are constantly slipping out of the binder pockets. What did I tell you, useful. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Howdy friends! In the states we have a long holiday weekend coming up. If you have kids at home you might enjoy this quick and easy craft using items you already have at home. Watch the video to learn how to make a water bottle bracelet:

Supplies:

Water Bottle Bracelet Directions:

Using scissors or a craft knife (grown-ups only) cut through the water bottle to make rings. You can get between 2 and 5 from a bottle depending on the style of bottle and the width of the bracelet you wish to make.

Cut strips of fabric 1″-2″ wide and about 18″-22″ long.

Wrap the strips one at a time around the water bottle ring. Don’t worry if you don’t like the way it looks, you can unwind it and wrap it again as many times as you like.

Hold the ends on the last strip securely and sew a button over the ends. Embellish with more buttons.

Variations!

You can use old outgrown or stained clothes destined for the rag-bag for this craft (you can even save button from old clothes to embellish the bracelets with!) Try wrapping the water bottle rings with duct tape, rope, aluminium foil, washi-tape, yarn, string or other craft materials. This is your bracelet, you can use whatever you like!

This is a fun craft for girl scouts, summer camp or vacation bible school, or anytime you want to entertain kids while recycling. You can make the bracelet more suitable for boys by using rope, duct tape or paracord. Don’t you love a thrifty and versatile craft? If you have other ideas for these bracelets then leave a comment! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Hello friends! I spent the day cleaning the basement. Well, most of the basement, I didn’t bother with my craft area or my husbands workshop, they were OK but the rest of the cellar had gone to pot over the summer. Hmm, does anyone say “gone to pot” anymore? Maybe it’s a Maine thing, well anyway, it means trashed and neglected and if that did not sum up my basement perfectly I don’t know what would. Let me paint a picture for you (because I would be horrified to share an actual picture) Sidewalk chalk artwork on walls and floor, paper strips from a gum wrapper bracelet turned paper bead obsession, pearler beads which I think somehow multiply once spilled on the floor (there were spilled on the floor waiting to be ironed…the iron was lost in this mess!), totes of kids toys that are apparently way more interesting once you pack them up and put them in the basement, and then there was the kids craft area. This was really bothering me. I’m not a neat freak but I work in my basement everyday, in addition to being the fabulous frugalcrafter I also do custom framing and I need a large clean area (AKA the pool table) to lay out frames on, it was out of control.

Warning, I’m gonna talk about cleaning ad organizing for at least another paragraph so if you want to skip to the video you can. Still here? Well, what do you know, cool! The basement went downhill when we moved our love seat downstairs after buying a new living room set last fall, then we put our old TV downstairs too. This was a kid magnet, so instead of the kids sitting at their craft table to create they dragged their stuff over to the love seat and created there. Craft sprawl is the worst! Yarn! I forgot to mention the yarn LOL! I put a small table behind the love seat thinking I might want to bead there and it was taken over by the kids, they did not use their craft table anymore and honestly it was too small for more than one to use at once. So I decided to change the kids craft area to kids art supply storage. I thought about buying a big industrial shelf and getting rid of the 6″ table they had but then I realized (read: too cheap to buy a shelf and too lazy to go to the store) that I already had a storage shelf under the table and two plastic carts I could put on top so I made my own shelf like storage solution. then it was a matter of tossing junk like dried up bottles of glue, paint and play doh, old coloring books and stuff they would never use then sorting the rest into drawers. I had a full drawer of sharpies AND a full drawer of water based markers when I was done. Insanity I tell you! I had a drawer for clay, basic craft supplies, watercolor, stickers, basic school supplies, crayons & colored pencils, fabric crafting and a couple more things. A milk crate for paper, homemade magazine boxes made from soymilk boxes for coloring books, notebooks and journals and a couple boxes for stamps. Under the table which was pretty well organized was jewelry making supplies, jumbo pads, pottery and a basket of ink pads. I was able to empty a fairly big storage unit by putting like items together and everything is accessible, will wonders ever cease? The I took masking tape and a sharpie and labeled every bin and drawer! go me! OK now, on to the video of an unrelated recycled bottle cap craft!

If you are in need of bottle caps ask any single friend you have to save them for you, you will get them in spades! So as a reward to all of my cleaning today (or yesterday as you are reading this) I am rewarding myself by checking out the brand new Hobby Lobby in Bangor Maine (I’ve never been in one before!) The grand opening is tomorrow (or by now I guess it’s today) so if you are there say howdy! I’m meeting friends there first thing before the Buffalo Wild Wing crazies grab all of the parking spaces LOL! I actually thought they were open last week but it was just the wingers. Well that’s it for tonight, I am extremely tired from the cleaning but happy with the results. I hope the kids can keep it that way. :) Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Happy Saturday folks! I was excited to log into my blog this evening and see that I now have 2000 email subscribers! There is a little box over on the left if you want to sign up, that way you receive an email each time I write a post…I know it sounds annoying but apparently people seem to dig it. I’m going to relish this moment before my readers come to their senses and unsubscribe LOL! After that ego affirming tidbit I decided to check out my YouTube channel and I have 9,921 subscribers, boy, it sure would be cool to have an even 10,000…only 79 to go {hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink} no pressure or anything hahahaha! Speaking of videos I did a quick video on using the paper bead roller my daughter got for her birthday {from my awesome husband!} We have had so much fun with this thing! Of course you don’t need a contraption to make beads but boy is it fun!

You want one now, don’t you? Hubby bought it a Target in the toy area where the board games are, it was $10. Some youtube viewers said it was more on amazon so you might want to check around. I love the fact that it attaches to a bottle for ease of use and storage of beads. I washed and dried several soda bottles so everyone can have a bead bottle going, the coffee table in the living room is covered with paper strips, glue and bottles of beads. Hello weekend! I hope you are having fun this weekend making beads, apple picking or watching football, it’s all good. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Howdy crafty folks! It’s time for What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday! I FINALLY managed to bring some order to my crafty chaos this week. I even vacuumed! I dug under the scary table where I cram stuff and purged and organized and I am not ashamed to show you my room. Even with my projects in progress out it still looks pretty good:)

Doncha love this shelf? I found it on the side of the road with a “FREE” sign on it! Free! Can you believe what people get rid of? I had my husband hang up the shelf then I used ribbons, scrapbook papers and beaded tassel trim to change it from “blah” to “ohh la la!”

I spent most of the day painting and working on a new beginner watercolor tutorial for my shop. I finished the BBC series Being Human so I decided to start on the American series…hmmm, tv is so much better with British accents….